


Greatest Fear

by servantofclio



Series: Branwen Lavellan [9]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 04:38:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5403290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/servantofclio/pseuds/servantofclio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She never did ask about the tombstones they saw in the Fade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Greatest Fear

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt by theherocomplex. We know what the Nightmare thinks Solas's greatest fear is, but I wasn't sure he'd agree.

She never did ask about the tombstones they saw in the Fade.

It is characteristic of her not to pry in that way. The Fade has the potential to strip minds bare, to reveal intimacies and privacies that might otherwise remain hidden. She saw the stones, and their inscriptions; he observed her eyes traveling over them, slow with thought and meaning. Yet she said nothing. It was civil of her, even gracious, to keep that knowledge to herself, a kind of courtesy he might have found among the most thoughtful and refined of his own people.

Again and again, she surprised him, and she must have had questions about the inscription the Nightmare chose for him, especially given the recent development of their liaison. But she did not speak them, did not hint that dying alone need no longer be his fear, if he chose.

The Nightmare was a master of manipulation, a demon skilled in burrowing its way into the most hidden depths of its victims’ psyches and unearthing the most fetid clots from within, displaying them as proudly as a prize pig might root out truffles. The Nightmare was also _wrong_. Solas is almost insulted that it assigned to him so fundamentally selfish a fear. 

His fingers tremble on his pen, and he stills them, resolute.

No, it is not his own death he fears, in whatever circumstance; rather he fears the consequences of his actions, spilling out around him, so many ripples on a pond, a veritable avalanche collapsing about him. His fears do not need to be wrested from him; he can name them with his own tongue. Solas fears that he will work and fight and bleed and sacrifice, make and unmake, and all for _nothing_. 

Now his grip tightens so hard the slender quill threatens to crack. He lays it aside.

Did the Nightmare realize he was already living his greatest fear? Was that why it taunted him with those words? He woke to this darkened, shattered world, with its mindless masses cut off from everything that should be their heritage, and had to begin all over again.

But no, not mindless. She showed him otherwise, after all. 

Solas breathes out a curse. Never has he so longed for the counsel of Wisdom, or any who might truly understand his position, but that, too, is lost to him. 

Nonetheless. The manner of his death does not matter, whether he dies of advanced age in his bed or bleeding and broken on a battlefield, whether someone holds his hand and gazes upon him with clear eyes, or he is utterly alone. His own fate does not matter in the face of the People’s fate.

He tells himself this as his candle gutters low.


End file.
